Square One
by ChaserGrey
Summary: "Commander Shepard's body has been recovered. The Lazarus Project will proceed. Again." After Shepard dies defeating the Reapers, Miranda has to start at square one. But this time she doesn't have to do it alone. Post-ME3, better ending, whole-crew ensemble fic. Derated from M since it never actually had any adult content.
1. Chapter 1: Starting at Square One

"This is absolutely unacceptable."

How many times had she heard those words? Countless, beginning with her father's assessment of anything less than perfect performance and carrying through her career with the Illusive Man. She'd used them countless more times herself, her voice as cool and precise as a razor blade as it sliced open subordinates. And yet it occurred to Miranda that she'd never really meant them before. The other situations had been bad, yes, but this was different. This was _wrong_. This could not be allowed to stand.

And therefore it would not. Because Miranda could do anything she wanted to do. And damn anyone who stood in her way.

"You all know what the Council said." She swept her eyes over the Normandy's briefing room, taking in each of them. Chakwas, quiet in her lab coat. Garrus, one arm around Tali and the other clenched on his knee, talons curling into his palm as though to keep himself steady. Jack, slouching with her arms crossed in the back of the room and hanging on every word. Ashley Williams, the second human Spectre who right now looked like a lost little girl. And all the others who had fought alongside Shepard and each other, from the first skirmishes with Saren up to the moment the Reapers turned tail and ran back into the intergalactic void. "They've refused to allocate any additional resources to the project. Apparently with billions dead and billions more displaced, it would be criminal to spend so much effort on just one man."

"One man," Urdnot Grunt rumbled from the back of the room. "Later you will tell me which of them described Shepard as 'just one man' out loud. I could use a good workout." The last bit was only half a joke, as a murmur ran through the sentients gathered around the conference table. The mood in the room was ugly and getting worse. It would be easy for it to turn into violence, or tough talk and posturing followed by resignation. That couldn't be allowed to happen either.

Once Miranda wouldn't have known how to stop it. Now she slapped her palm down on the tabletop, a sharp *crack* that drew everyone's attention to her and gave her a moment. A silence. And that was all she needed, thanks to John.

"It doesn't matter. We're going forward." Carefully concealed surprise and a few mutters of disbelief around the table, as Miranda started to pace. "We've got Shepard's body. The synthetics that went into it last time and the comparatively short period spent in vacuum mean the damage is much less extensive than after Alchera. We can bring him back."

"That took Cerberus years." Tali's voice was soft- not objecting, exactly, but stating the obvious. "And billions of credits. We don't have either."

"No. We don't." Miranda braced her hands on the table and leaned forward. "But let me tell you what we do have. We have a fully sentient AI with capabilities that make the machines Lazarus Cell used look like that stupid knockoff VI of Shepard. We have a damn good doctor, and we have the ability to find the best specialists left in the galaxy to back her up and every byte of data ever written about the subject." Liara T'Soni nodded, from her place at the table. "We have one of the best cybernetic engineers in the galaxy, we have biotics who can do things the Alliance thinks are impossible, and when all else fails we have the ability to find and take whatever we need to do this." In the back of the briefing room Zaeed Masani held a fist up in the air, leaning forward to bump it against Grunts' and Garrus'. "I did this once. We can do it again."

"But- look." Ashley leaned forward and ran her hands over her eyes, the only outward sign of fatigue she allowed herself. "I hate this as much as any of you do. But doesn't the Council have a point? We're all the best in the galaxy at what we do. Who's to say we couldn't have thousands or millions somewhere else? Wouldn't the Skipper want us to think about the rest of the Galaxy?"

"That-" Miranda paused, standing upright and looking down at her hands for a moment. "That is a completely valid point, Commander Williams. I can't refute it. I can only...speak for myself now."

She looked up, tone still reasonable but growing less so with every sentence.

"None of us is indispensable. The resources we're going to use are infinitesimal compared to the scale of the need. People solved their problems without John or any of us for a long time, and they can get it done without us this time too. Shepard doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve to die without seeing the victory he's made, without seeing the killing stop or getting the chance to have peace or happiness. Shepard-" Miranda broke off and looked down again. The first blaze of anger was past as quickly as it had come, and she squeezed her eyes shut to prevent them from filling, fingers clamped across the bridge of her nose. When she spoke again it was in a much quieter voice.

"I had a lot of names when I first met Shepard. Ice Queen. Miserable Miranda. Loveless Lawson. Cheerleader. That bitch. I...wasn't human, not really. I was a spider, sitting in my web of data and reports and using them to move people around like chess pieces to get what I wanted. I didn't know anything else, which meant I could never understand Shepard. How he could bring out the best in people, how he could get them to follow him into the jaws of death time and again.

"Until he showed me. He showed me what loyalty was, and friendship, and trust. He taught me to give a damn about people even if it meant getting hurt down the line, because that was the only way to get them to give a damn about you. He was- the first person in my life who didn't expect me to be perfect, or shame me for needing to depend on other people. John taught me-" her voice caught, and suddenly she didn't give a damn "- he taught me how to be part of something. A squad. Then a crew. Then a family."

Miranda looked up, finally, no longer ashamed of her tears or of letting them see her with all the armor stripped away. "John made me...a better and greater person than I could ever have dreamed of being myself. I think he did that for all of us." They were nodding, but no one broke the silence as Miranda kept talking. "The galaxy can't ever repay him for what he did, but even more than that...I can't ever repay him for what he did for me.

"Just this once, can't it be about John and what he needs, and not what everyone needs from him? Instead of him giving everything for us, can't we give everything to him?" They were animated now, murmuring to each other, nodding. In the back of the room, Jack was leaning forward, her dark eyes wide as she looked at Miranda as though she'd never seen the other woman before in her life. After a moment Ashley spoke.

"Objection withdrawn. With pleasure." She grinned. "Which means I get the dubious pleasure of telling the Council about this. You want I should pass a message on to them, Boss?" Miranda smiled and stood up straight.

"Yes. Tell them that my associates and I are proceeding with Project Lazarus II on our own recognizance, regardless of their wishes. Tell them that their objections have been fully noted and I have decided that I am going to make things right, and to hell with the rest of the galaxy. And tell them-" Now she leaned forward again, her teeth baring in a smile as she remembered a phrase of John's "- tell them that they can work at my side or be crushed under my feet, but they will not stand in my way. Because I am Miranda _fucking_ Lawson and I. Do. Not. Fail. Think you can pass that along?"

"In full stereo." Ashley flipped her OmniTool's record function off. "That was pretty impressive. I may have to keep a copy."

"I don't know," Garrus' voice was thick with amusement. "I think I got a better shot from over here. The lower angle means you get a better shot of her-" Tali elbowed him in the ribs "-profile."

"Skipper'll appreciate that." And there it was. Ashley's voice was light, amused, and contained not a molecule of doubt that Shepard would be around to render his opinion.

Because he would. And Gods help anyone who said differently. Miranda smiled as she looked the room over.

"Thanks you, ladies and gentlemen. Now let's get down to brass tacks. We're starting from square one, and we have a great deal of work to do."


	2. Chapter 2: Jack

It was different, this time.

The first Lazarus Project had been a particularly addicting sort of hell for Miranda. She'd worked herself twice as hard as any of the specialists Cerberus had brought on, checking their work for mistakes and malice alike before allowing anything to be done on the subject. That's all he'd been, then- the subject, 2.05 meters and 89 kilograms worth of flesh, bone, and nerve, condition slightly seared to flash frozen. She'd blended natural and synthetic with the cool dispassion of a sculptor working in bronze, knowing she was working against time. Exhausting. Terrifying. But _good_, in the way only a tough project well done could make her feel.

Now it was John on the table, with his side torn open by some Reaper minion and his eyes filmed over with vacuum cataracts. His fingers were purple where the blood vessels had ruptured, right in the places he'd used to touch and tease and comfort her during the few golden months they'd shared the SR-2 captain's cabin. His mouth was frozen in a half-grin that made her heart ache.

When it was time to initiate the first procedure, a simple palladium webbing to reinflate the blood vessels as a preliminary to restoring circulation, Miranda couldn't do it. She stared at the icon on the control panel, knowing that as soon as she pressed it the machines would start to pry John's body apart. There would be no going back, and no room for mistakes. And so perfect Miranda Lawson sat and trembled for an hour, damning John Shepard for making her human.

She called Jack, in the end, and whatever smart remark the other woman had prepared died on her lips when Miranda silently pointed to the control panel. The biotic looked things over, punched the start sequence, then stunned Miranda by walking over and wrapping one brilliantly decorated arm around her shoulders.

"Hurts, doesn't it?"

"Mm?" Miranda looked up, and incredibly, Jack gave her the tiniest of smiles.

"Being human. It hurts." Miranda just looked at her for a moment, then nodded, wiping tears away from her cheeks.

"Yeah. It does." From somewhere inside of her even she couldn't fathom. "Thank you."

Jack laughed. "Don't get too excited, Lawson. I'm doing this for Shep. Not you." Miranda nodded.

"I know. Thank you anyway." Jack turned to leave the medbay.

"Call me if you need anything else." A playful pause. "Cheerleader."

Somehow, Miranda couldn't muster a retort. Or maybe, just maybe, this time she didn't feel like she needed to


	3. Chapter 3: Grunt and Mordin

Grunt came to see her, six weeks in. He'd just gotten back to the Normandy after another routine mission, or at least what was becoming routine for them. Liara's sources had located an Elcor expert on cellular regeneration everyone had thought dead before the Reaper War. When they caught up with him, naturally it turned out that he was hiding because he'd somehow pissed off an Omegan crime lord, who had unfortunately survived the war as well and was not prepared to let bygones be bygones. Miranda had let the man rave and sputter for a full two minutes over the com link before deciding negotiations had failed, then sent Grunt with Zaeed, Garrus and Tali to adjust matters. Six hours ago the crime lord had been found in the middle of his opulent mansion's smoking ruins being devoured by his own pack of pet varren, and the Elcor was now comfortably ensconced in their biolab.

"Na-Master." Miranda smiled and looked up as Grunt strode into the medlab. She'd had to ask EDI the first time he'd called her that, a week after they started work, because she honestly couldn't tell whether it was an insult or not. As it turned out it was very much "not"- a Krogan na-Master lead the krantt in a battlemaster's temporary absence, and received the obedience and respect due the Battlemaster in his stead. "I trust all goes well."

"It does, thank you." Miranda shut her microscope off and tapped a couple virtual keys, setting a simulation of some cell-repair phages to run. "I watched some of your mission telemetry. It was...interesting."

"Indeed. I always appreciate the chance to accompany Tali'Zorah on missions. The results are often...very educational."

"Indeed." They stood in silent contemplation for a moment before Miranda added, "You know, if you'd asked me, I'd have said it was impossible to get that kind of velocity out of a household ice maker."

"As I said. Educational." Grunt shifted back and forth a bit on his feet. Miranda debated prying, but instead just crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him sideways. It worked for John, sometimes.

And this time, for her too. "Na-Master, I received an unusual message from my clan leader at our last port of call. He sent me a package...one that apparently belonged to Doctor Solus."

"Mordin?" Miranda bit her lip. She'd never been especially close to the Salarian, but she'd liked him- Hells, they all had on what she sometimes caught herself referring to as "the old crew". She'd been sad to hear of his death on Tuchanka, although truthfully the impact had been blunted by the war, a time when stopping to feel every loss would have doomed her. "What is it?"

"That is the problem, na-Master. I do not know. And neither does Urdnot Wrex." Grunt fished in his armor and drew out a small strongbox. "Solus entrusted this to my clan leader on Tuchanka, shortly before departing on his final mission. Said something about Wrex being the likeliest person he knew to survive what was going on, and that it should be opened if Shepard was ever to be killed or when the war ended. And that the mechanism would be obvious."

Miranda ran a hand over her face. "Let me guess. Obvious to Mordin..."

"Is a great puzzle to anyone else. Urdnot Wrex attempted to open it when he heard of our efforts, but could not. I have not made any progress either." Grunt handed Miranda the strongbox. "Let us hope you can find one to do better, na-Master."

Later that night, Miranda stared at the black metal box as it lay on the desk in her quarters. It was featureless, save for a mechanical keyhole with an inscription above it in Standard: "The right one only, if you please."

Right one only. But Wrexs' message had said he was sure Mordin hadn't passed along a key to fit the lock. So where would he have put it?

No. She sat up straighter. No, Mordin wouldn't have hidden a key. Too chancy, and he never left anything to chance. So somewhere was the right key. Right key...

Miranda blushed as an absurd idea came to her. After a moment, she scowled. The problem was, it fit. Too well. And it would also be damnably easy to try, with a couple quick extranet searches.

A few minutes later, Miranda double-checked her search results and then carefully locked her stateroom door and closed her eyes. She'd always been self-conscious about this- not because she was bad at it, because like most things she tried Miranda was damn good at it. Maybe because it clashed so badly with her ice queen image, or because she knew every atom of talent she possessed for it was put there by her father. In the dark it was easier to remember, and just sing. After a moment, she began.

_Asari-Vorcha offspring have an allergy to dairy,_

_Be glad it's not a Krogan breed, for that one's simply scary,_

_Should levo/dextro couples e'er desire to get physical,_

_Provide them with some barriers, and many useful safety films_

Miranda's voice was a perfect, clear soprano- and just as important, Daddy Dearest had made sure his heir had been born with perfect pitch. That should be enough, but Miranda remembered one of Mordin's many choruses, and impulsively tacked it on with a smile.

_I've studied species Quarian, Asari, and Batarian,_

_(With one delightful monograph on STDs of varr-i-en)_

_My xenostudies they have ranged from urban to agrarian-_

_I am the very model of a scientist Salarian!_

When she opened her eyes, Mordin Solus was standing in front of her. Miranda started, but only for a moment before the recording began to speak.

"Ah. Shepard. You managed to hit the right notes, or got someone to do it for you. Suspect the latter, you sing almost as well as you dance." Despite herself, Miranda suppressed a giggle at that, remembering Shepard's attempts on Omega. "If you're viewing this, it means I am dead. No regrets. Died doing what I love- at least, hope so. Would hate to go out like Tomakin from STG. Freak malfunction in hot tub, raised temperature very slowly. Didn't notice until he was already broiled, funeral...very awkward. Anyway.

"When first came on board Normandy, was completely fascianted by results of Project Lazarus. Flawless blending of biological and synthetic components almost totally unprecendented, years beyond cutting edge. Knew you wouldn't appreciate being treated as an experimental subject, but implants were just so-" Mordin made grasping motions with his hands "-_fascinating_ that couldn't resist. So decided to make studies, not tell you." Mordin looked chagrined for a moment. "Never claimed to be ethical giant. But no use pretending now. Anyway. Enclosed storage disks contain results of my analysis, along with some speculations on how process could be streamlined. Hope you won't need them, of course. But your track record suggests otherwise."

Mordin frowned, and for once actually seemed to have trouble finding the right words. "Dislike formality. But wish you to know that it was...a privilege to know you, Shepard. Live well, my friend, and find the happiness you deserve."

The recording ended and the case's lock released. Miranda pulled out the first of the optical datadisks that lay inside, tapping it on the table between thumb and forefinger before slotting in into her office terminal. She didn't want to sleep anymore. All she wanted was to start using Mordin's last gift. She owed it to the rest of their odd little family


	4. Chapter 4: Garrus

Predictably enough, it was Garrus who found her working the heavy bag he'd set up in the Normandy's main battery. He didn't say anything for a few minutes after he first came in, letting Miranda work her way through a series of fast kata, hands and feet throwing off droplets of blood as she pounded the stiff canvas. Only after she ended with a spinning back kick that knocked the bag into a tight circle and made her dodge out of the way did he ask,

"What happened?"

Miranda blew an errant strand of sweat-soaked black hair out of her face and turned to face him, still gasping for breath. "Shepard's brain is completely fried."

Garrus' mandibles flared. "And I'm guessing the way you say that means it's worse than it was the first time around?" The first time John had died and been brought back. God, why couldn't she have fallen in love with someone easier? Miranda shook her head, pacing in a tight circle on the gym mat she'd drug out to cover the main battery's floor.

"That's the problem. It wasn't fried the first time around, not really. Some damage from decompression, of course, but after that nothing significant and the deep freeze preserved most of the structures. This time, the Reapers-" Miranda's jaw tightened, fighting back a red curtain of anger at the thought of them, "-whatever they did to John or John did to them, the energy fried every neuron in his body. The peripheral stuff we can rebuild, and his spinal column was patched in enough places during the original Lazarus that we can work around the gaps. But the brain, the pathways there are just...gone."

"So what do we do?" Garrus' voice was calm and level, and Miranda rounded on him.

"There's nothing we can do! If I had the data I did during the first Lazarus Project we could try to reconstruct based on it, but I have nothing. The only thing I can think of is to put John to- to rest. Let the Alliance have their frigate back. And then... I might ask you for the number of a good weapons dealer on Omega."

"Hey." Garrus crossed the room in one quick motion, catching her arm and holding a finger in her face. "Don't talk like that. Conning the universe into killing you isn't going to solve anything."

Miranda laughed, utterly without humor. "Look who's talking."

"Yeah, well. I've never claimed to be an example anyone should seek to emulate. But seriously, Miranda. Even if...all this doesn't work, you have to know there are other things you could do with your life. The Alliance as much as said they'd commission you in a heartbeat if you wanted to come. The Council's going begging for operatives, and unless they're stupid I think they'd make you a Spectre before long. Or you could help people like your sister, spirits and ancestors know there's enough people out there who need it right now. You can still have a-"

"Don't. Say it." Miranda made a chopping motion with her hand, leaning forward. "The kind of life I'd have then, I don't want. I'd go back to being Miserable Miranda moving projects across her chessboard and looking through- advice columns to find things to say to Ori!" Her voice was getting louder, but she couldn't stop it. "I'm not like the rest of you, Garrus. I can't just...change that without someone to lean on. No matter how much I want to. And when I say I would rather die than go back to that, I'm not being dramatic. I'm being honest. Either way I'm not living, and at least dying won't hurt!" The last three words were bit out between her teeth, her whole body taut like a whip as she glared up at Garrus. The turian sighed, holding a clawed hand up to his face.

"Spirits, and I thought I was bad after Alchera. Miranda...I won't say I understand, because I don't. No matter what they say in Fornax Shepard and I were never that way." It was delivered in such a dry tone that Miranda couldn't help but let out a little grin. She still had that issue, ivery/i carefully hidden. "But you should know that you don't have to go back to being that way. Not while any of us are still alive."

"Us?" Garrus' eyes narrowed.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't be dense. It doesn't suit you. You called the Normandy crew a family when this all started out and you said you were part of it. Right on both counts. Family does for each other no matter what happens, and you know how hard we all are to kill." Garrus' voice softened. "You won't be alone, Miranda. Not while there are still manipulative Asari information brokers, one-eyed turian snipers, and oddball but strangely adorable quarian engineers in the universe."

"Don't forget human Spectres." Garrus and Miranda both turned to see Ashley in the door, holding a datapad. "But I think I might have another suggestion to offer. Does the name Quinn Marlow mean anything to you, Miranda?"

Miranda frowned. "Marlow...yes. He was a Lazarus Cell operative who stole some of our data and escaped, about six months before Shepard awoke. He got off the station but I never heard anything else of him. I always assumed the Illusive Man had him killed. He was very good at finding people when he wanted to."

"Yeah, well, this is one time we can thank our lucky stars he fucked up." Ash held the datapad up. "Marlow's resurfaced on Omega, trying to sell a large cache of what he describes as biomedical data. Unless he makes a hobby of ripping off top-secret research facilities-"

"Ooh, now there's a thought for when I retire."

"Nobody asked you, Garrus." Ashley's voice was more amused than annoyed. "Anyway, it seems very likely Marlow's trying to fence the data he stole off Cerberus back in '84. The Council wants to talk to him pretty badly about some other research he was involved in. Enough that they decided to send a Spectre to bring him in." Ashley's face opened up into a full-blown impish smile. "Guess who managed to snag the assignment?"

Miranda returned her smile, then crossed the main battery to the intercom panel. When she spoke, her voice was bright and strong again.

"Joker? Change course, get us headed for Omega as fast as she can go." Her eyes narrowed. "Seems I've got an old friend there, and I'm simply dying to catch up with him."


	5. Chapter 5: Tali

_A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Rather embarrassing mistake about Shepard's last name fixed. Working my way through the other women in Shepard's life now, which makes it a little harder. In case anyone's interested, this follows the storyline I ended up with after playing long enough to get the "best" I could: Thane and Mordin are dead, obviously, and Shep romanced Ashley in ME1 but switched to Miranda in 2 and 3. No offense to Ash, just the way things ended up for me, and the next chapter will talk about why. And now, back to our program._

Four hours after the Normandy shifted over to evening watch, Miranda still couldn't sleep. The morning would bring another mission, no different from the dozens she'd embarked on from this very ship. Except, of course, that on previous missions she'd only had her own life to worry about. This time it was John's. And she didn't know how to do it.

Too soft, and Marlow would escape before they closed the net. Too hard, and he'd wipe the data before they could get it. And he'd been part of the Lazarus Cell, so if he got so much as one look at most of the crew he'd be gone in a flash. She couldn't square the circle, and in less than six hours she'd have to, for the highest stakes she could think of.

She turned over in bed, pillowing her chin on her hands and sighing. Dammit, having the emotional range of the average software agent had been convenient at times. Loveless Lawson had been able to curl up in her office chair or a quiet corner and drop instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep with no more effort than a computer dropping into standby. She'd never lain awake wondering what the next day would bring, because she'd been in control of everything, always. She'd never felt the cold, empty dread that could only visit you at 0200 and there was no light or sound to blank out visions of what could happen in a few hours' time. She'd never had memories full of warmth and light twist sideways and become reminders of what she didn't have. What's more, she'd never imagined those things even existed, so it would never have occurred to her to miss them.

For a long time Miranda had defined happiness as the absence of pain. By those standards, ignorance had been bliss.

With a sigh of annoyance Miranda rolled out of bed and pulled on a set of old Alliance blues, tucking her hair back into a ponytail and striding out of her quarters on Deck 3. She wandered aimlessly, trading greetings with the night shift as she went. She paused outside the biolab, watching their pet Elcor work over a culture dish while John's body lay on the table behind him. Miranda put up her hand, ready to press the door control, but after a moment she dropped it. Going into the lab wouldn't help. It would probably make her worry even more. So instead she crossed to the elevator shaft and punched for engineering. Once the doors closed, she took advantage of the slow cycle and sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees as she thought.

She'd never known what, but something had made Shepard care about her. And once that had started there was no way of stopping it. No matter how out of control he'd made her feel in those talks in her office, no matter how earnestly she'd pleaded that she _didn't even know_ what this was. He was the first man who'd refused to stay in the neat little box she'd put him in, to keep him at a safe arm's length even when she took him to bed. Miranda smiled at that, a little. She'd like to think that made her special, but if she was being honest the single thing that made Shepard Shepard was an absolute refusal to take the universe on anyone's terms but his own. A man who could face down a race of billion year-old death machines and tell them to fuck off, and she'd thought she could dictate the terms of their relationship?

Not likely. The Alliance had to throw him in prison to make it stop once. The Reapers had to kill him to make it stop twice. And she was going to make damn sure nobody got a third chance at it.

The Tantalus core was oddly relaxing to look at as she leaned against the console. It was only when she was half asleep, listening to the engineers talking about some detail of the ship's drive in the next compartment, that she realized it was the same place she and John had made love the night before going through the Omega-4 relay.

Miranda's cheeks flushed a bit, but any trip down memory lane was brought to a mercifully short end when she heard a clattering from behind her. Whirling around, she saw Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, holding up her hands in front of her.

"Sorry." Tali bent down and scooped up the multitool she'd dropped to the deckplates. "I can never sleep right before a mission, and so I noticed that the portside alignment matrix was operating at a slightly lower efficiency, and you never know when we might need everything we have to get away from Omega in a hurry. So I came down, but you were here, and you startled me, and-"

"It's allright, Tali." Miranda forced a smile. She'd spent most of her life thinking of quarians as the bottom-feeders of the galaxy, and no matter how many times she'd been shown that wasn't true the habits of a lifetime died hard. And there were other reasons she'd been avoiding Tali. "I was just…thinking."

"Thinking? Or remembering?" Tali's voice was a little sharp, and Miranda's hand brushed against her throat.

"How did you-"

"Oh, come on." Tali put her hands on her hips. "Did you really think you two could do that in _my_ engine room and I wouldn't notice? The deckplate harmonics were off afterwards by nearly three points, I could smell something off in the main engine working fluid, and I couldn't get EDI to stop snickering for a week."

Miranda blushed a bit, but laughed. "Should have known better." She looked up at Tali. "I'm sorry." For a lot of things.

The quarian sighed, and walked over to lean against the panel next to Miranda. "Don't be. Shepard made his choice, I've made my peace, and Garrus makes me happy. I didn't get what I wanted, but how many of us ever get what we want at twenty two?"

"I wouldn't know." Miranda bit her lip and looked into the drive core. "As best I can recall at twenty two I didn't want much of anything, other than for my father to say he was proud of me. Or that I'd done well. Or just all right."

"Your father." Tali was silent for a long moment. "Miranda…when did you know you were free of him?"

"Um." Miranda tried to hide her surprise at the question, then shrugged a bit. "I'm not sure. To the best of my recollection, it was sometime after I shot him."

"That would do it." Tali looked down, her hands gripping the railing tightly. "I keep thinking I should go back to Rannoch, feel the wind on my face, and build the house my father always talked about. But then I don't want to, because it was his dream and because of what it cost him. And Garrus is here, and he'd go crazy on Rannoch, and-"

"And you're vas Normandy. Like the rest of us." Tali looked over at her, and nodded.

"Yes. And that's worth wearing the mask." Miranda nodded in turn, then felt it. The click in her mind that made all the pieces fall together like a card trick, with a perfection even John at his best was sometimes in awe of. She felt herself smile, then grin, looking at Tali.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." Miranda leaned against the console with one elbow, grinning impishly. She couldn't help it. "I know how we're going to get the data away from Marlow. It's a bit weird and a little risky, but I think it'll work."

"Really. Weird and risky." Tali crossed her arms over her chest, but Miranda somehow guessed she was smiling. "As opposed to all the conventional, safe plans we usually try here aboard the Normandy?"

"Point. Now go wake Garrus and Grunt." Miranda turned, Tali one step behind her. "This long night is going to turn into a very short one, because we have a lot to do."

*SceneBreak*

"So you see." Quinn Marlow was a squat man, square-faced with a close crop of black hair and a perpetually suspicious look on his face. Behind him in the cheap rented conference room in one of Omega's warrens, a mixed squad of drell and batarians were doing their best to look like bloodthirsty killers instead of the mid-priced hired muscle they were. "Terabytes of data, and it's all bleeding edge. Worth every centicredit of the asking price, especially in these times. It'll be years before research gets even close to what it was before the Reapers, so ten years beyond the state of the art then will be decades now. Worth quite a bit to your employers, miss."

"Actually, I don't see." Tali leaned forward, pointing a finger at him while Grunt shifted into a more menacing pose behind her chair, dropping the bag that supposedly contained their payment and opening it to let Marlow see the contents. "I see a bunch of storage disks and a lot of empty words. If you think I'm handing over a cool quarter million worth of platinum because of your tall tales, you can think again. I want to see the data, or there's no deal."

Watching through her omnitool, Miranda smiled. Marlow had been Cerberus, the same as she had, and one of the perils of being a human supremacist was that they usually weren't good at telling aliens apart. That went double for quarians, especially with a few cosmetic changes to Tali's suit, and krogan, whom even the most enlightened humans thought all looked like dinosaurs with equal parts gland and attitude problem. It had worked well enough to get them a meeting with Marlow, and that was half the battle. Well, a third maybe. Call it a good solid quarter.

"Of course." Marlow smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I can transmit the file headers to-"

"Not good enough." Tali shook her head, with just the right mix of hope, greed, and suspicion. "I've seen the old blank headers trick, thank you. I'll need to see the files themselves and compare checksums. Did you really think we'd want any less?"

"Not really." Marlow's smile had gone sour, but he triggered his omnitool and pushed a couple keys. "Transmitted, but I warn you. Try to go beyond the file checksums, and those files are surrounded by viral guardians. First they'll delete the files, then they'll wreck your omnitool, then they'll tell me what they did, and then I'll get angry. We clear?"

"Crystal." Tali's fingers worked over her omnitool, light reflecting off her visor as they moved almost too fast for Miranda to track. Working checksums, and at the same time hacking her way around Marlow's sentry programs just enough to search for the data they really needed. Miranda whistled as Tali's fingers moved with confident precision, never missing a keystroke as she multitasked among three top countermeasure programs.

"God damn, she's good." The other being in the hide one building over grunted without looking up from his sniper scope.

"Yes, she is, and I wish to the spirits she hadn't volunteered for this shit. We all owe Shepard, but this is-"

"Working." Miranda flashed her fingers over as her omnitool lit up and the appropriate files started to transmit. 9%…17…29… "It's working."

"Marvelous. Now tell me when Tali's done with that snake, and then I'll relax." Miranda turned her attention back to the download, then flipped back to the telemetry from Tali's drone. Marlow was talking.

"-sure you'll find everything in order. Miss?"

"What? Oh, yes." Tali was only half-listening, her fingers still working over the multitool. "In order…so far everything seems."

"Hmmm." Marlow pursed his lips, and Miranda didn't follow his motion until too late. Before she could say anything Marlow had run his hands over the top layer of platinum in their chest, disturbing the ingots and revealing the plain lead ballast that had substituted for the metal they just didn't have. His face registered surprise, then rage as he reared back, pointing at Tali.

"Get-"

Before he finished the sentence, Miranda was out the window. She hit the street three stories below in a biotic-cushioned tuck and roll, up and on her feet before the report of Garrus' first shot had died away. She threw herself across the street, drawing her Carnifex in one smooth motion and blasting the lock off the door to Marlow's building. She could hear shouting through the thin walls inside, shots, and her chest tightened in fear for an instant before a voice cut through them.

"I. AM. KROGAN!"

Marlow's hired guards had the only door into the room covered, but that didn't turn out to be a problem. Miranda simply sidestepped the wailing airborne batarian who'd crashed through the wall a couple feet from it and ducked into the room, tapping off two quick bursts from her Hornet that sent a pair of mercs sprawling to the floor. Urdnot Grunt held the center of the room, laying about the room with his shotgun and his armored elbows alike as he stood between the remainder of the mercenary squad and Tali, who was still working at her omnitool. Marlow was in the back of the room, trying to work around to the door, but then another report sounded and the batarian next to him suddenly gained a fifth eye and lost the back of his head. The man dropped out of the line of fire and put his hands over his head.

"Tali!" Miranda grabbed one of the mercs and slammed him to the ground with a pulse of biotic energy, trying to scan the room for threats and hold herself out of the line of fire at the same time. "Do you have the data?"

"One second…" Tali stabbed her finger down onto her omnitool just as the lone remaining pair of mercs in the room took aim at her. Another thunderclap from outside, and one of them sank to the ground, most of his head above the jawline missing. Almost absent-mindedly, Tali flipped her shotgun off her back and blasted the other before looking up at Miranda. "Got it. His sentry programs were a little inventive, but nothing I couldn't handle. We're good to go."

Miranda smiled and hauled herself to her feet, crossing the room to Marlow. The little man had stopped cowering and looked up at her, his eyes going wide.

"Lawson? Lawson!" He sprang to his feet, ignoring Grunt's shotgun as it swung to cover him, and jabbed his finger at her. "I knew it'd be you, Lawson. I knew ever since I got out from under your so-perfect nose that you'd be after me. That you'd stop at nothing to find me. I hid for so long, but I knew when I had to sell the data you'd be on the scent. Well, you got me. But I beat you, Lawson! For years and years I beat you!"

"I wasn't looking" Miranda's lips curved up into a smile, and Marlow looked at her google eyed.

"W-what?"

"Poor little man." Miranda's voice was cold as ice as she held her submachine gun on him. "To you, the day you scraped up the guts to plant a knife in my back was the bravest and proudest day of your life. But to me? It was Tuesday. I didn't give a damn where you went, and I wouldn't now if you didn't have something I wanted. Now do fuck off."

Marlow's eyes got wider, which Miranda would have laid long odds against being possible. "W-what?"

"You heard me. You're not threatening me or mine and you don't have a weapon. Once upon a time that wouldn't have mattered except for making it easier to put a bullet in you, but then I fell in with a warrior who didn't particularly care for killing." Miranda raised her SMG and pointed it at the door. "Now go before I change my mind."

"That was unexpected," Tali commented as Marlow sprinted for the exit. Miranda shrugged.

"What can I say? Shepard's contagious."

"Miranda, if Shepard has anything contagious I don't think I-"

"Save it, you two." Garrus' voice was absolutely flat, with no trace of his usual post-mission jibes. "We've got a convoy of aircars headed this way. I recognize the model." His voice got even grimmer. "Aria's here."

Inside the building, the three teammates looked at each other. After a moment, Miranda spoke for all of them.

"Oh, hell."


	6. Chapter 6: Liara

Miranda considered running when Garrus called the incoming, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Running from Aria on Omega was a losing proposition, and at least here they had a chance to talk and some cover if things went south. Moving, they'd have neither. So she helped Grunt and Tali improvise some field fortifications as best they could until Garrus called that the first aircar was thirty seconds out. Then she stood, checked to make sure her Hornet was securely in its holster, and brushed the accumulated dust and dirt as best she could off her faded and battered Cerberus uniform before sauntering out the front door as though she owned the place. She'd never been the duck-and-hide type.

"Miranda." Garrus' voice sounded in her ear as the first car opened its doors, disgorging a mixed group of heavily armed Blue Suns and Blood Pack mercs. "I just got through to the Normandy. There's backup coming, but it's five minutes out. We should be able to last that long against these clowns, but I'd really rather not put that theory to the test. So stall." Miranda didn't want to speak where there could already be a boom mic trained on her, but she touched one hand to her ear and nodded.

Sure. Keep the ruthless immortal crime boss who'd just taken back her territory and was probably aching for someone to make an example of talking for five minutes. The hell of it was, it was better than any plan she'd thought of.

"Well, well, well." Aria T'loak was dressed as stylishly as ever, a light purple jumpsuit with her trademark white jacket over it and an empty weapons belt that sent its own message. The Queen of Omega didn't need to carry guns. She had people to do that for her. "If it isn't the lovely Miss Lawson. You've got a lot of guts showing up here. Even if you hadn't done anything else, I should shoot you dead just for wearing that uniform."

"This old thing?" Miranda looked down at herself with deliberate indifference. "I only hung onto it for sentimental value. Not too many people cross the Illusive Man and live to tell the tale."

"Mmm." Aria pursed her lips and nodded with the air of a cat playing with a mouse. "Looks good on you too."

"There's that as well. Honestly, have you even tried to get body armor to match a pale complexion? Most powered combat suits are only in autumn shades."

"I'll remember that." Aria leaned forward, her teeth baring as she sprung her . "Unfortunately, there's _also_ the little matter of Quinn Marlow. Sending your pet goons to blow up Korvis' house was one thing, Lawson. He was an independent operator, it's his own fault for not hiring better security, I never liked him much, and that ice machine thing was pretty funny. Marlow, on the other hand, did the smart thing and paid for my protection. Which means that if I let you and your pals show up, steal his little treasure, blast apart my mercs, and walk away afterwards, I look weak. You see the problem?"

"I don't suppose saying I'm sorry will cover it."

"Cute, Lawson, real cute. You should really leave the witty banter to your boyfriend." Aria's expression changed, her smile spreading as malice glinted in her eyes. "Oh that's right. You can't, can you? Too bad the savior of the galaxy didn't know when to duck." Miranda's jaw clamped tight as she fought to keep her face immobile, but the cool glint of satisfaction in Aria's eyes told her she wasn't doing well enough. "There there, no need to get upset little girl. Just all of you hand over your omnitools so I can wipe Marlow's data, and we'll call it even. How's that?"

"Go to hell," Miranda gritted out. Not very diplomatic, but the words were out of her mouth before she could call them back. Anything else Aria wanted, she could have. But not John's only chance back.

"Suit yourself." Aria took a step back, then another as her mercenaries began to raise their guns. "I can get them just as easily from your corp-"

"Ahem." The voice was light, ethereal, and ever so slightly amused. Liara T'Soni stood off to one side, keying up her omnitool and smiling. "Much as I hate to interrupt this charming conversation, I'm afraid I need to speak to Aria."

"So make an appointment like everyone else. I'll be back at the Afterlife right after I'm done painting the walls with these jokers and letting my men loot their bodies, Miss, ah-"

"Shadow Broker." Liara smiled as Aria took a step backwards, eyes narrowing. "It's not who I am, as the saying goes, it's who I represent."

"The Broker." Aria's voice was almost a hiss. "You tell that nosy bastard to keep off my turf. Or maybe I should send him a reminder myself."

"I'll pass that along." Liara's face hadn't moved. "But that doesn't change our business here. I have something for you." Liara touched three keys on her omnitool, smiling cooly as a message pinged onto Aria's. "I'll give you a moment to review it."

Aria scanned the message. As she did so her face went robin's egg blue, then dark purple. "This is- that's impossible! Where in the ninety nine hells did you get this? The records were all destroyed a century ago!"

"Supposedly. The Broker has his sources. The good news is, this particular information is for sale."

Aria lowered her omnitool, eyes narrowing. "The price?"

"Everyone here walks away. After that, the Broker turns over his copies of these files to you, and you can do whatever you want with them. After the Normandy leaves dock."

"No." Aria's eyes got wide, and she held up a hand. "Just…no. I can't do that. Anything else, money, favors?" Liara laughed, the sound light and musical.

"The Broker's got more credits than he can spend, and more markers than he could ever call in. Sorry. This is a one-time special offer, Aria. Say no, and I'm afraid this information will become available to the general public immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up, shall we say, on sale."

"You _bitch_." Aria hissed the last word out. "I should have my men shoot you where you stand."

"Should. But won't." Liara crossed her arms over her chest. "Because you know what happens if you do. Don't you?"

The two asari locked eyes for a long moment. Another, as Miranda wondered abstractly whether she would ever breathe again. Then Aria looked down.

"Go. Just go. All of you, and if your boss doesn't send me those files right away-"

"You'll hunt us down and pursue terrible, icky vengeance. I'll pass that along. Pleasure doing business with you." Liara backed away towards her aircar, and after a moment Miranda followed. A minute later and they were airborne, winging their way through the tight artificial sky of Omega back towards the Normandy. As they lifted Miranda could see Aria turning back towards her aircar, the mercs around her already trading glances at her backside and each other, their body language screaming of questions and doubt where there had once been smooth confidence. Somehow, Miranda didn't think the Queen of Omega would be able to hold onto her newly reacquired realm for long.

"Nice save, Liara." Garrus' voice was quiet, level as ever as he kept his eyes fixed on the sky in front of them, scanning for threats. The asari nodded, wiping sweat from her face as she collapsed back into the seat.

"Thank you. There wasn't time to get enough firepower together, so I needed another weapon, and fortunately I had one. I've been saving that little item on Aria for a while, but I think this was worth it." In the seat next to her, Tali nodded vigorously, already sorting through the recovered research data.

"It was. Believe me. Are you going to hold up your end?" Liara nodded.

"One rule I don't break. The Shadow Broker keeps his promises. Anything else is bad for business."

"That file." Miranda had her chin cupped in one hand, looking casual but carefully scanning the sky for threats. "Did I miss something, or was it enough to _blackmail_ the Queen of Omega into letting us go?"

"Yes." Liara's face was cool. Unreadable. "It was."

"Do I want to-"

"No." She shook her head. "Trust me. You really, really don't."

And after that, silence until they were home and safely back on their way.

_A/N: Okay, so I lied. Liara saved them, not Ash. She's coming next, promise. Thanks to commandocucumber for the message, and MatCat for pointing out some of Ash's dialog that just didn't sound right. I looked back and he was right- there's a revised Chapter One going up now. And now, back to our program._


	7. Chapter 7: Ashley

"This one has forgotten-"

"How much this movie sucked!"

"-how many charges remain in its clip. It wonders-"

"Why we're still watching it!"

"-If the criminal scum feels fortunate."

"He's bluffing! C'mon, he's bluffing, do it!" The chant of "Do it, do it, do it" rose to a crescendo, followed by a long, theatrical "Awwwwwww" as the criminal inevitably dropped his gun. Miranda smiled and shook her head as she walked past the open door of the portside crew lounge. She usually liked the chance to spend some time with the crew, relax, joke, and generally keep her eye on the emotional temperature of the Normandy. But there were limits to her dedication, and sitting through another showing of _Blasto: The First Hanar Spectre _with the audience participation script and props was one of them. Donnelly had been disappointed, saying he'd never met anyone who could imitate C-sec officer Linda Plentiful's voice the way she could, but Miranda hadn't wanted to face moaning in passion every time Blasto's tentacles touched Linda on screen.

At least, not without John beside her doing the script's lines for Blasto. She'd told Donnelly so, and said hopefully she'd be back for his screening of _Blasto vs. the Krogan Armada_. After all, a girl had to find hope somewhere in her life.

Miranda crossed the mess deck, heading for the biolab and another set of tests results, when she saw a vague orange flicker out of the corner of her eye. Curious, she walked over to the starboard crew lounge and held the door override, cracking it a bit to look inside.

And saw a church service.

Ashley Williams knelt before a makeshift altar, one of the room's tables covered with a thick white cloth and supporting two short candlesticks with a small open book between them. Miranda could see her profile, her eyes focused on a page of the book and lips moving silently as she brought a smaller white candle up with one hand, lighting it off one of the candlesticks. Miranda drew back, a sudden welter of guilt in her for spying on something so private, but before she could close the door Ashley turned her head, met Miranda's eyes, and smiled.

"Come on in. There's a reason it wasn't locked, you know."

Miranda felt her cheeks flush, mouth half-open as she tentatively stepped across the threshold. Living in a world where what you knew was often the difference between life and death had left her almost compulsively curious, but escaping her father and protecting her sister had also left her very aware of how valuable privacy was. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, that is- I'm not a believer or anything."

Ashley smiled, tranquil and just a bit impish. "Nobody's perfect. Come on anyway." She rose to her feet with smooth, graceful economy of movement, balancing the lit candle in the palm of one hand so carefully that it barely flickered. Miranda's heart ached for a moment, and it took her a moment to realize why. John had moved the same way, no nervous shuffling or wasted motion, every muscle he moved deliberate. It was, she supposed, an Alliance N7 thing, something John and Ashley shared that she never would. "Just saying a few words for the Skipper. Wherever he is."

Miranda cocked her head to the side, genuinely curious. "And where's that?" The other woman shrugged slightly.

"Tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure. The Book's got a fair bit to say about what happens when you die, but not a whole lot about going in the other direction. Not without some personal help from the Big Guy himself." Ashley smiled softly and turned towards the lounge windows, yellow light flickering over her face. "But I know he'll come back to us. And when he does…he'll know that I believed it this time, and that I stayed on his side."

"This time?" Miranda walked over to stand behind her, keeping her voice carefully neutral. She'd worked well with Ashley during the War and the last few months of desperate improvisation, but the past- and particularly Ashley's past with Shepard- had been a subject she'd very carefully avoided. "You didn't know it was possible before. You couldn't even be sure it was him. And I don't think he ever doubted you."

"He should have." Ashley shook her head. "Truth was, I didn't want it to be him. I'd mourned and moved on. I wanted it to be a clone, or a mechdoll, or anything but him. By the time we met on Horizon I was just so _angry_, I wanted him to be gone. So he was. Then the next time the chips were down I drew a gun on him." Miranda stayed silent, but she knew the other woman was remembering the same things she was. Ashley on Horizon, words sharp and angry as razors that had cut into Shepard so finely it had been months before Miranda could see the scars on him. Ashley on the Citadel, standing between her old commander and Udina with her gun up, while Shepard ignored the threat to Council Space and focused desperately on talking down his old crewmate. Miranda remembered the weight of her Hornet in her hand, the spot just above Ashley's ear she'd chosen as her aim point, and just how close her trigger had been to breaking when Ashley had turned her gun on Udina. She knew Ashley was thinking of how close she'd come to shooting Shepard, and knew she would never ask. Ashley's voice was slow and a bit thick when she spoke again. "This time, I want him to know that I believed in him. And that I always have his back. So even if he's not…where my kind of people go, I feel like as long as I'm doing this, I'm letting him know that."

"That you believe."

"Yeah." Ashley looked over at Miranda. "Probably sounds crazy to you, doesn't it?"

Miranda considered that statement for a moment. Then, instead of answering, she walked over to the altar and picked up another small candle, lighting it as she'd seen Ashley do. At a nod from the other woman, she blew out the candles on the altar, then walked back over. Her step was careful, halting, and she had to cup her other hand around the candle to keep it lit, but she made it. She stood by Ashley, looking out at the universe with their faces lit by orange light. Closed her eyes. And tried, just for a little bit, to believe.

_A/N: Yes, I know Miranda wasn't there on the Citadel. Consider this story to take place in a very slight AU, where after Ori's rescue Miranda resumed her duties and fought through the rest of the Reaper War as XO of the _Normandy_. You know, the way it should have been._


	8. Chapter 8: Miranda

They had managed a great deal since that day six months ago when Miranda swore them all to bringing Shepard back. Billions of nanomachines had scanned Shepard's body cell by cell, patiently picking apart dead cells and replacing them with living clones. New organs had grown on scaffolds of polysaccharides and bioplastic in the Normandy's lab, cultures of stem cells with John's DNA transfused into them and then patiently nurtured until they developed into heart, lungs, liver, kidneys. Burnt-out synthetics had been carefully pried away from flesh and bone under Chakwas' knife, salvaged for usable parts, and then replaced by better ones. Tali would allow no one else's hands to touch the synthetics intended for her Captain's body, and Miranda didn't argue- she'd rather have Tali working alone than the entire Cybernetics Branch of the original Lazarus Cell. Shepard's veins had filled, first with saline enriched with artificial hemoglobin, then gradually with newly made blood as they coaxed his bone marrow back to life.

Whole new clusters of white blood cells sprouted and were eliminated, the body learning what was self and what was foreign in a battle usually waged before birth, sending John's temperature through the roof and making his body swell until Miranda stayed up for five days straight, drinking coffee like water and terrified their house of cards would tumble at any moment. His fever broke about six hours after she'd started to see the Illusive Man's ghost filter up from the deckplates to mock and accuse, watching with those terrible burning eyes as she fought to save the man she'd betrayed him for. Miranda had studiously ignored him for the six hours it took to make sure John was stable, then fled to the crew lounge until Ashley came, helped her light a candle to chase back the shadows, then stayed until she fell asleep on the deck. Afterwards Miranda would tell herself that the act had only calmed her down and made her stop hallucinating, but she would never be quite sure.

When she woke, head fogged from sleep and back screaming from over twelve hours on the deck, she found a note on the door proclaiming, "THIS AREA SEALED by Spectre authority. Violators will be shot". Underneath, in a succession of handwritings, were the messages: "Survivors will be shot again. In the head", "Survivors of that will be headbutted", "And slammed against a wall WITH MY MIND until you CRY, so just try it", "And shot again, 'cos I like shooting people", and "Your concern is touching, but I can simply electrify the door handle". It was sweet, in a violent and slightly demented sort of way- which was to say, in a Normandy sort of way.

John's nervous system began to function again, helped by cultured neural grafts and synthetics to bridge the completely burnt synapses. His heart began to beat, his chest to rise and fall as his lungs sucked oxygen into his new bloodstream. Life was taking hold everywhere in his body- but the higher brain functions, the seat of consciousness, remained stubbornly blank and dead. The Lazarus data they'd gotten from Marlow had helped them pick out some of the neural pathways from the charred mess of his cerebral cortex, but as hard as Miranda tried to fill in the gaps it just wasn't enough. They needed more data, and had no way of getting it. Until, in her desperation, Miranda had a truly radical idea.

"My position hasn't changed" Chakwas' smile was tight and humorless as she looked up at Miranda from her office chair. "This is completely insane."

"You said before it was only mostly insane."

"All right, so it's only mostly insane. I didn't want to encourage you."

"Be that as it may." Miranda folded her arms over her chest, doing her level best to stare the other woman down. "We need a set of engrams we can use to compare against John's pathways. Not the whole puzzle, just a few pieces we can put in the right place, and build everything else around them. I've got a lot of memories of John…intense ones. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to find them, record the corresponding structures, and then use it as the basis for rebuilding his cerebrum."

"No reason?" Chakwas' voice was sharp. "How about the fact that it means wiring up your _brain_, Miranda. It means sticking electrodes in there and stimulating different parts while your head is in a scanner, hoping we get something useful. Meanwhile you're going to be reliving those memories, putting who knows what kind of stress on your system, and if the probes slip even a millimeter you could end up brain damaged. I can't even tell you the risks-"

"No? Then fortunately I can tell you the rewards. We might actually get John back, rather than having him lie there in a goddamned coma." Miranda leaned forward over Chakwas' desk, her eyes narrowing. "Let me make something clear, Doctor. I'm not asking your permission. I'm asking for your help. If you'll do this for me, fine. If not, I'll get someone else to do it, someone who probably won't be as good and has more of a chance of leaving me a drooling vegetable. But I'm not giving up while there's any hope of making this project succeed. So either help me, or stand back and watch. Those are your choices."

Chakwas looked up at her levelly, perfectly composed except for a muscle jumping in her lower jaw. "Damn you, Lawson."

"Quite possibly." Miranda stood up. "How long will you need to prep for the surgery?"

*SceneBreak*

"Time Zero." Now that she was working, Chakwas' voice was brisk, impersonal, perfectly in control. Miranda could hear her perfectly clearly- she was under local anesthetic only, although a powerful paralytic kept her head and neck absolutely still. "Check me, EDI."

"Confirmed." EDI had transferred back into the Normandy for the operation, giving her fuller access to the ship's medical suite without, as she put it, the distractions of having a body. "All electrode sitings are checked and confirmed. Ready to begin stimulation of Site One on your command."

"Acknowledged. Allright, Miranda, you know the drill. Button in your left hand if the memory's not relevant, right if it is. Both at the same time, and we stop the procedure and try something else. I'd tell you to do that if the memories are too intense or difficult to handle, but I know you're not going to listen. So just be careful, allright?" Miranda blipped her right hand button twice in acknowledgment. She swore she heard Chakwas sigh. And then the words came, "Initiate Sequence One", and her world fell away.

_"Completely unacceptable." Miranda was looking up into Henry Lawson's face as she sat with her arms around her knees, shaking in her pretty new blue dress. She'd spent months practicing for this voice recital, and then when she got on stage she couldn't breathe, and and auditorium in their house seemed to rush in around her, and nothing helped until she ran and ran and hid until the shaking stopped. "You are my daughter, and that means you _will _be a worthy heir to my legacy. You _will _exercise discipline and control at all times. Anything less is unacceptable. Remember, I have your genome on file, and if you prove a disappointment I can always try again." Nine year old Miranda swallowed the lump in her throat and forced down the tears. Letting him see them would only make things worse._

_"Yes, father." There, that had been good. Hadn't it? He made no sign either way._

_"Very well. I have arranged for you to repeat your recital at tomorrow's party for my board of directors. The audience will be larger. You will perform. Is that understood?"_

Miranda managed to squeeze the left button, and she barely heard something about "Sequence Two". The world shifted again.

_"-nsure what the purpose of this meeting is." Miranda stared across the restaurant booth at the well-dressed man opposite her, watching as he lit a cigar and leaned back into the shadows. _

_"Very simple, Miss Lawson." Miranda forced herself not to react at his use of her real name. "I need someone I can trust. Someone capable enough that the word impossible isn't in their vocabulary. And someone willing to be a hundred percent loyal to Cerberus." Miranda raised an eyebrow._

_"And you think I would be?" The man chuckled._

_"Of course. Because I can guarantee you that under my protection, your father will never be able to find you. And I have something else you might want, courtesy of the Shadow Broker. Tell me, Miss Lawson, did you know you have a sister?" _Left button, hard. "We're barking up the wrong tree, EDI. Shift to Site C and rerun Sequence One," and the universe shifted again.

_"It doesn't work that way. What- idiotic bunch of hormones decided now was a great time for love?"_

_"It doesn't matter. What matters is how we feel." _And he was there, because she was there. She could hear his voice, feel the heat of his skin close to hers, smell him, and Miranda mashed down the right-hand button, feeling tears well up in unmoving eyes until they spilled down her cheeks.

_"Dammit."_ _Because he was right, and they both knew it. He'd demanded to be let in, refused to accept anything else, and somehow Miranda had surrendered before the fight even got started._

_"Come on, Miranda. You want this."_

_"Yeah, I do." Because no one had ever wanted her, not really, not because she was her rather than for what she could do. And from then on, she was lost._ Fading now, Sequence Three, let's see if we can get something good but less emotionally charged.

_Bare skin in the Captain's cabin, the night after, giving up the last shreds of control she'd held onto so desperately in the engine room. Pressed down under his weight, his arms propping hers against the pillow as his knee opened her legs, pinning her open until she could only gasp, and moan, and feel without distractions. Until he made her feel just what she meant to him and how beautiful she was in his eyes_. _The first man she'd ever been good enough for, and he thought she was even better than that. It took a long time until she realized he worried he wasn't good enough for _her_, and once the awe subsided she reached over and showed him just-_ Well damn it, that's not less, let's switch to Nine…

_Throwing a model of the Normandy SR-1 to the ground, watching it shatter as she screamed at him, ranted, raved- never touching him, knowing what that would mean to an N7-trained Marine and unwilling to take things that far, even now. Finally standing in front of the door and sinking to her knees, holding her hands up and begging him not to do this, the invincible Miranda Lawson stretched out prostrate and pleading for another day. But he'd never stopped packing, never even slowed, and in the end even she couldn't compete with three hundred thousand ghosts. When he was standing at the airlock all she could manage was,_

_"Shepard I-" The words caught in her throat. She couldn't force them out past the barbed wire that seemed to have sprouted there, as much as she might want to. Dammit, it wasn't fair. People said those words all the time and just because she hadn't ever, never wanted to and now she couldn't make them-_

_"I know." Then he was gone and Miranda damned herself for a fool. _Try another site, this is all too loaded. She is not using the emergency signal. Of course, she'd rather burn out her brain. Now switch before-

_"So what's next for you?"_

_"Get Ori somewhere safe." She turned to him, her knight in black combat armor who'd blown the doors off her father's fortress and rescued what she held most precious in the galaxy. Again. "The safest place I know, Shepard. Which is right behind you."_

_"Miranda?" She smiled to see him at a loss for a moment, and straightened up._

_"Commander Shepard. I understand you have a difficult mission ahead of you. If you haven't already filled the position, I would very much like to offer my services as Executive Officer of the Normandy." _

_The smile on his face was like the sun rising as he drew himself up to attention. "Nothing's too difficult if I have the right crew. Welcome aboard, Miss Lawson. Report to the shuttle."_

_"Aye, Sir." And then neither of them could stand it anymore, and she was pressed up against him, her head turned into his chest and eyes squeezed tight, muscles she didn't even know she had relaxing because this was where she belonged. His voice was soft in her ear._

_"Hey, 'Randa."_

_"Hey you." She fought to breathe, then decided oxygen was overrated anyway. "I missed you." _Allright, that's a good one. Try kicking this site across to Sequence Ten, we'll-

_Miranda pushed her way through a tangle of twisted metal and fallen cables, the light of her vac suit swinging in front of her like a lantern as she forged ahead of the rest of the party. Six weeks. Six _fucking _weeks stuck in the middle of nowhere, until Garrus got their distress beacon online and they were picked up by a wandering party of Geth, of all things. Until they'd patched enough of the Normandy's systems to get her flying again, Joker and EDI working to guide her through the system's newly reset mass relay even though every sentence in the book said she shouldn't be going anywhere but airdock for the next year. Six weeks to get to what was left of the Citadel, cross to the dead Crucible-_

_-and find a crumpled body in N7 armor, its torn side and the trails of blood speaking of pain and wounds, the seared flesh and bulging eyes speaking of some unimaginable final struggle. Miranda felt a choked sob push out from her throat, heard a muted curse as Garrus broke through to stand beside her and sink down to check his friend's body. She looked down at Shepard, the face she'd so often tried to press into her memory slack and lifeless, his body stiff and cold, another corpse in a galaxy full of them. No…in a galaxy with a lot of them, but one that wouldn't have to be full of them. Not completely. Not thanks to this man, and the victory he would never see. And there was only one thing she could say._

_"This is absolutely unacceptable."_

And then Miranda was back in the Normandy's med bay, Chakwas glaring down at her as she wiped tears away from Miranda's face, the moist cloth rough in her hands. "That's enough. I'm through watching you burn your brain out, Lawson. If you don't have enough to go on you can get some back-alley butcher from Omega to cut on your brain until you think you're a Volus opera singer, but I'm not going to be a party to this any longer. Killing yourself piece by piece won't bring Shepard back." She turned and stalked away. Behind her on the biobed Miranda closed her eyes, and felt that enough of the paralytic had worn off to curve her lips up into a smile.

Because she rather thought that this time, killing a bit of herself would help bring Shepard back. And she didn't even have to question whether that was a good deal or not.


	9. Chapter 9: John

After that, it was just like piecing together a puzzle. Chakwas' expedition into Miranda's mind let her generate some sample engrams for John's side of those experiences, with a lot of help from EDI's simulation spaces. Overlaying them with the Cerberus data gave her a reasonably complete map of John's higher brain functions, which she could use as a "before" to trace out the fried connections in his brain.

Of course, the human body wasn't made to function without its cerebral cortex, so every day Miranda spent working was a day something else could go wrong with John's body. And neural engrams were a three-dimensional puzzle with a lot of question marks still attached to them, even after two centuries of neurological research. So on the whole it was more like tossing all the pieces from a jigsaw puzzle off the top floor of a skyscraper, jumping off after them, and trying to put them together in midair before they and you slammed into the ground at terminal velocity- but then, Miranda had never done things the easy way.

And then one day she was done.

She'd made the last connection based on hard data two days ago. She'd dithered for another twenty-four hours, looking over EDI's model of John's brain, making and unmaking connections based on patterns she thought she saw in the data until her head swam. Then she'd turned the final model over to the Normandy's suite of microsurgeons and let them work for twenty four hours while she slept, showered, tried to eat past a heart that was pounding out of her chest. Then, when EDI paged her (it had been two weeks, and Chakwas still wasn't speaking to her), she went back to the biolab and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The damnable thing was, nothing had changed since the last time she'd been in there. The heart and lung monitors continued to blip at regular intervals, tracking John's brainstem as it kept his body alive. Faint traces spiderwebbed over the brain scan, then faded away when she tried to track them like ghosts under a flashlight. And still John lay motionless on the table. Excitement soured in Miranda's mouth, and she felt the first iron hint of despair in the back of her throat.

No.

Miranda stood in one deliberate motion, crossing to the door panel and shutting it. She carefully drew a pitcher and two plastic cups from medical stores and filled it with filtered water. Then she drew a chair over by John's bedside, laced her fingers in his, and sat down to wait. She knew she could go up to five days without sleep. Food would not become a worry for some weeks. She had done everything she could, and now she was damn well going to make sure she was the first thing he saw when he came back to her. No matter what it took.

It all sounded good in her head. The problem was one she should have anticipated. Miranda Lawson did not do well with boredom. Her mind worked very quickly, and after an hour of sitting and watching John breathe it was running in circles. An hour after that it was running through nightmare scenarios, one after another until she thought she'd hyperventilate. She'd drunk the whole pitcher of water just to have something to do, then spent minutes in the biolab's head, thinking about how she'd never live it down if John woke up _now_.

Finally she couldn't make all the horrible things running through her head stop, so she closed her eyes. Took a breath. That made it easier. Most of the songs she'd learned as a child were bits of opera chosen by her father to show off her range and pitch, but there was one song she'd learned because it was Grandpa Lawson's favorite and her father wanted to please the old man. She'd sung it years later as a lullabye for the toddler Oriana, neither of them knowing what the places and names in the song meant. Now she rested her arms on John's bed, pillowed her head on them, and sang it low to have her own voice for company.

_By lonely harbor walls, I watched the last star falling_

_As the prison ship sailed off against the sky_

The next line was harder.

_Sure I'll wait and hope and pray, for my love in Botany Bay_

_It's so lonely round the fields of Athenry…_

"You've been holding out on me."

Miranda's head jerked up, her eyes blinking open as she met John Shepard's across his pillow. He was turned sideways on the biobed now, sky-blue eyes twinkling mischievously. Miranda just stared at him, open-mouthed, and damn him he just kept pressing the point. "If I'd known you could sing like that I'd-"

"John?" It came out more like a question than she meant it to be, as she clamped her hand around his. "John."

"Yeah, Miranda. It's me." And then he was smiling, and she wanted to throw herself at him but knew his body probably couldn't take it yet. "Last thing I remember is going into Harbinger's beam…after that it's all bits and pieces, except I keep remembering some kid I wanted to smack in the worst way-"

"John." She cut him off, hand going to his face, tracing the scars that had reappeared there, feeling his skin warm and alive under her touch. And then his hand was on her, and she was learning into his touch and laughing and crying all at once and didn't even care that she was just repeating "John, John" over and over again like an idiot as six months of crimes and burdens slid off her all at once. He stopped talking, just held her and let her wind down before he just said,

"I'm here, 'Randa. I'm here." And then she broke down again, like a silly idiot, and she was still laughing and sobbing into his chest when the lab door slid open.

"Miranda, Chakwas said something about her telemetry going- oh, my." A long silence, and Miranda was weighing the pros and cons of turning around to tell Garrus to fuck off when another voice sounded, synthetic-filtered and distinctly amused.

"Come on, Garrus. Let's give them some time alone." There was a sound suspiciously like an embarrassed cough, and then Garrus was just as smooth as ever."

"Come on, Tali, don't you want to share the touching moment of reunion?"

"Not quite that close, thank you." Dry as ever, but rich and animated in a way Miranda hadn't heard in a long time.

"Come on. Some people think human mating customs are very-"

"I have a shotgun." The door hissed shut behind them, and Miranda and John just looked into each others' eyes for a moment. She never knew, afterwards, just who started laughing first, but it ended up with both of them trying to catch their breaths and her trying not to start sobbing like an idiot again. She'd been known to turn on the waterworks before, but this was ridiculous. After another long moment John spoke again. This time his voice was quiet, pensive.

"How long?" Miranda looked up at him, wiping her eyes clear. His gaze was level. He knew. So she just said,

"Six months." She managed a shaky grin, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I've been busy."

"So I see." He made a show of looking at his hands, then smiled warmly as he leaned in, pressing his lips softly against hers. "Just like last time." She shook her head.

"No. Last time I did it because…because it was a job and I couldn't face failing. This time it was for me."

"For you?"

"Yeah." Her voice was soft as she leaned in, resting her head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat, feeling his arms go around her. She felt sleep creeping on, and for once made no move to stop it. "Just couldn't live without you, I guess."

"Makes two of us."

"Ass." But this time there were no tears with the laughter, because one of the things she loved most about John Shepard was that she could always manage to laugh around him. As her eyes drifted shut and she heard his breath slow, heading for a sleep that would cleanse and heal both of them, she managed to get out the words she'd been sitting on since his arrest.

"I love you, John."

"I know, 'Randa. Always did."

Sleeping in John's arms, she didn't dream at all that night, for the first time in months. At the end of Miranda Lawson's journey there was, as she'd hoped, only rest and peace.

_There you have it, folks. I've been advertising this as a ten-parter, but I feel an attack of the epilogues coming on. So don't touch that dial._

_I don't know why, but I've always had this idea that Miranda has a beautiful voice but hates to sing. This was a good chance to let the idea out and play. As for the choice of song, the mood fit, and I love a good Irish song_


	10. Epilogue: Crew

"Well hello there." Garrus Vakarian's voice was richly amused as he tapped the crystal screen display at one of the Normandy's CIC stations. Shepard was at his side in an instant, leaning in to peer at the bright holographics against the gloom around them. Everything but essential systems aboard the Normandy was powered down to reduce the load on the heat sink, and the usual environmental standards had been relaxed. Most of the CIC crew was in sweat-stained utilities, drops of perspiration running into their eyes and dripping down onto their workstations as the temperature within the ship's habitable volume soared. Now it was all about to pay off.

"What ya got me for me, Garrus?" The turian flipped over to a narrow-view sensor on the ship's passive array and tapped a faint trace, barely visible against the background.

"This. Thermal signature, faint, but it's there. If I were the suspicious, paranoid sort I'd say it was someone trying to sneak up on the supply convoy to Adelaide."

"So it's-"

"Someone trying to sneak up on the supply convoy to Adelaide. Right MO, anyway." With billions dead and galactic civilization in shambles, the entirety of Council space had to face some very harsh realities. If they buckled down, worked hard, and stayed lucky their grandchildren might someday enjoy the same standard of living they had before the Reapers came. If they didn't, there was a decent chance sheer entropy would finish what the Reapers had started. High-population worlds could start rebuilding with their own resources and a lot of marginal colonies had to be evacuated, but that still left a large middle tier of worlds that needed massive aid to get any kind of reconstruction program underway. Manufacturing equipment, chemical catalysts to restart power plants, teaching VIs to replace experts who'd perished in the war, a few key specialists to get the right areas off the ground.

All of it was necessary…and incredibly vulnerable in a galaxy awash with desperate refugees and criminals willing to prey on the weak. Piracy had returned to known space with a vengeance, and the Council knew they had to stomp on it fast. Any grit in the gears of interstellar transport and commerce could send the whole system teetering over the edge, with incalculable consequences.

Which was why the Normandy had been drifting for days, her reactor powered down to a trickle and her crew slowly roasting as she tracked a cluster of relief ships on their way from the Slepnir system's mass relay to the struggling human colony on Adelaide. Trolling for sharks, Shepard called it, and it looked like they'd just gotten their first bite. He smiled grimly and patted Garrus on the shoulder.

"Good eye. Start a track on them."

"Already did. They're cutting across our path on their way to intercept, and just crossed into our no-escape zone. We can kill them anytime you want." Shepard shook his head slightly.

"We did that in Darrian and Ngola. This time I want prisoners. Can you take out their engines with a low-powered cannon shot?" Garrus scoffed slightly, turning to look at his friend.

"Can I take their engines out with a cannon shot? Shepard, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, or else I might have to be insulted. Get me within a light-second or so and I'll carve my name on their main thrust housing."

"Good enough." Shepard slapped his friend on the back and turned back towards his command station at the rear of CIC, raising his voice enough to carry throughout the space. "Look alive, people, we've got some trade. XO, sound battle stations and prepare to engage."

"Aye, Commander." Miranda Lawson's voice was crisp and precise as she answered without taking her eyes off the command station, smoothly flicking her fingers over virtual controls as the main holographic tank switched from its familiar galaxy view to a tactical map of the Slepnir system, showing their target heading for the drifting Normandy. As Shepard reached the station she slid over with smooth grace, unhampered by the bulge that was just starting to show in her abdomen. When Shepard stepped up beside her she reached down and slipped her hand around his for a quick squeeze before triggering a control on her console. A moment later her voice rang out across the ship's public address system:

"Battle stations, battle stations. All hands, man your battle stations and prepare to engage and board enemy spacecraft. Secure all compartments for possible loss of pressure and gravity and report to CIC when ready. Battle stations, battle stations."

The Normandy's interior lights came up to full brightness as her drive core came fully online, seconds before the klaxon sounded and the ship's corridors were filled with crewmembers running to their stations. Shielded for a moment by the chaos, Shepard turned to Miranda and leaned in against her for a moment, smiling down at her.

"Gotta go, honey. I should be back for supper." She smacked him lightly on the chest.

"Ass. You're insufferable, John Shepard."

"You love me."

"You're lucky I do." Shepard grinned and nodded, leaning into her in a gesture that somehow told her more about how he felt than a million words. When it ended Miranda was the one to draw back, her professional mask settling back into place. "Now go play soldier."

"Yes ma'am." And with that he turned, effortlessly the Commander again. "Joker, are they running?"

"Not fast enough, Commander." Joker Moreau's voice was as light as ever, with a hint of smug superiority. "It was kind of awesome watching them go from 'Fearsome pirates of deep space' to 'Oh my God get it away!' in about ten seconds, but they waited too long to make that change." At his station along the left wall of CIC, Garrus touched a control, then turned immediately for the rear of CIC and the elevator. "The only way they're getting away is if Garrus-" Just as the turian walked past Shepard's station, the holographic enemy ship on the tactical plot flashed red, both engine pods vaporizing into molten metal under the touch of the Thanix cannon. "-doesn't do what he just did. Kodiak range, Commander?"

"You know it. Closer the better, as long as it doesn't tempt them into something really dumb. You have the bridge, XO." Shepard turned and fell into step beside Garrus, and as the elevator doors closed behind them Miranda could hear them talking.

"Getting cocky, are we Vakarian?"

"Did I cripple them with one shot or didn't I? Besides, I couldn't take any more questioning of my abilities. You know how fragile my ego is."

"I was kidding, and Joker hadn't said anything yet."

"He was thinking pretty loud." Miranda laughed slightly, shaking her head as she began to give the necessary orders to move the Normandy into position for boarding.

This was as close to normal as life got around John Shepard. Fortunately, she liked it.

**SceneBreak**

"Battlemaster." Urdnot Grunt nodded respectfully as Shepard ducked into the Kodiak assault shuttle just behind Garrus, his eyes gleaming behind the helmet of his vacuum armor. "I take it all went well?"

"It did. Listen up, people. This will be a standard boarding op-" The other two Marines in the Kodiak's rear troop bay leaned forward to listen as he spoke. They'd just joined the Normandy, and Shepard was still working on their names. Briefly he wished he could have kept his old crew aboard, but that just wasn't possible. Ashley Williams in particular had left shortly after his second resurrection- there were just too few Spectres and too many crises to justify keeping two on the same ship. Tali was working the same problem he was, in a way, repurposing former Migrant Fleet vessels for humanitarian efforts and interstellar shipping as Quarians moved off them and back onto Rannoch. Jack had returned to Grissom Academy- along with Zaeed Massani, to his surprise. Shepard grinned internally as he remembered that scene.

_"I'm surprised you're getting off here." Shepard looked over at the old mercenary, one eyebrow lifting slightly. "I would have thought you'd head to Omega or Ilium, work on getting the Blue Suns back."_

_"Yeah, well." Zaeed shrugged. "Somehow after all that's happened, getting revenge and being top dog mercenary just don't seem as important. 'Sides, somebody's got to make sure nobody bothers our girl and her kiddies. Or at least make sure anyone what tries lives the rest of their short lives in agonizing pain."_

_"Wouldn't have figured you for the type, Zaeed." The other man opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment the airlock doors to Grissom station opened and a pair of children, a boy and a girl no more than six, rushed through, voices high and happy._

_"Uncle Zaeed! Uncle Zaeed, you're back!" Turning away from Shepard, the mercenary slung his rifle and picked up the boy, slinging him into his arms and wearing a broad smile that looked completely out of place on his scarred face._

_"That I am. And look what I brung ya." His hand came up, palm closed, then opened to reveal a dog carefully folded out of brown origami paper. The boy snatched it up, grinning as he made it dance across his fingers._

_"Wow, thanks Uncle Zaeed!"_

_"Learning, I see. Good." He looked down at the girl, who was looking slightly put out as she clung to his hand. "Don't worry, dear, you'll have the next one. Now give us a minute, hm?" She nodded and dropped his hand, and Zaeed turned back to Shepard, who had something suspiciously like a smirk on his face._

_"Uncle, huh?" _

_The mercenary shrugged. "Never said there weren't other compensations to the job. And Shepard? Tell anyone about this and there won't be enough of you left for your girlfriend to zap back to life."_

Fortunately, he'd been able to keep a few of the best. His darling Miranda. Garrus. And Urdnot Grunt, at his clan leader's specific request. That had been an interesting conversation.

_"Not sure I understand, Wrex. I'd have thought you wanted every krogan home and helping your clan rebuild." Wrex had leaned back on his throne and stared into the entanglement communicator, his amused chuff reaching from Tuchanka into the Normandy's war room._

_"Grunt is helping, Shepard. Like it or not, you're a hero here on Tuchanka, and having one of my clan members serve with you gives Clan Urdnot a great deal of prestige. Which means some other clans actually listen to me without having to be headbutted into line. Besides, I'd rather not have him on Tuchanka just now." _

_Shepard raised his eyebrows at that. "I thought you liked him, Wrex." The krogan tilted his head back and laughed uproariously for a moment, his beady eyes dancing with amusement._

_"I do like him, Shepard. He reminds me of me at his age, which is exactly why I don't want him on my planet. Young Krogan males basically live on raw meat and violence, and if there's not enough around for them they'll make some. I'm counting on you to keep Grunt supplied, and make sure he doesn't get his fool head blown off before he develops self-discipline." Shepard thought for a moment, then grinned._

_"Well, I guess I can stock up on raw meat."_

Shepard shook himself out of his reverie, forcing his mind back to the present as he finished running down the details of the operation. "Now remember, keep your shock rods handy and don't be afraid to use them. If I wanted to waste everybody on that ship we could have done it with the Thanix cannon from halfway across the system, but I'm sick of cutting the arms off this beast. This time I want the head, and that means prisoners. Got it?" Nods all around. "Good. Now let's go do our jobs." Shepard draped the crash webbing around his body armor, checked to make sure everyone was secure, and watched the hangar doors open. The remains of the pirate ship glowed in the vacuum just a few kilometers from the Normandy, and Shepard's eyes focused in on it for an instant before he smoke.

"Cortez? Hit it."

_A/N: I know, I know. I said no epilogue…but I lied. What happened is this: I started writing the above as an epilogue to "Square One". Halfway through I realized i had an idea for a sequel, which is still in the works, and decided to yank this as an opening chapter for it. After a bit of work, though, I realized that the fight against the pirates Shep and crew encounter here was basically irrelevant to the sequel's plot- but I still liked the crew interactions enough to want to salvage it. So for lack of anywhere better to put it, here it is, restored to its original place._

_And yes, there will still be a sequel. Working title is "Reversing Entropy". Might need someone to beta or just bounce ideas off of, though._


End file.
